Vice President Joe Biden traveled today to "Selma for the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, honoring the 48th anniversary of the events of Bloody Sunday," according to the pool report.
While there, the vice president offered "regret for not being a part of the civil rights movements in Selma and other parts of the Deep South."
More from the pool report:
SELMA, Ala. — During his remarks at two events Sunday in Selma, Vice President Joe Biden mentioned his regret for not being a part of the civil rights movements in Selma and other parts of the Deep South.
Sunday, Biden had the chance to visit the iconic Edmund Pettus Bridge, the point where marchers were attacked on March 7, 1965 and beaten by law enforcement in their attempts to march from Selma to Montgomery. That March day would prove to become one of the key powder keg moments of the civil rights movement and is known as Bloody Sunday.
Locked arm-in-arm with U.S. Rep John Lewis (D-Ga.), one of the marchers beaten on Bloody Sunday, Biden joined in spiritual songs and listened as Lewis stopped the march at the point where he and others were attacked, detailing the vivid accounts of how he was beaten, where others were trampled by horses.
“When we got to the highest point on this bridge, down below we saw a sea of blue of what was the Alabama State Troopers,” Lewis said. “We kept walking, we came within hearing distance of the State Troopers. A man said, ‘I am Maj. John Cloud of the Alabama State Troopers. This is an unlawful march and will not be allowed to continue. I give you three minutes to disperse and return to your homes or to your church.
“Hosea Williams then said ‘Major, please give us a moment to kneel and pray,’ and then the major said ‘Troopers advance,’” Lewis continued. “You then saw these men putting on their gas masks. They came toward us, beating us with nightsticks or whips, trampled us with horses and then released the tear gas.”
Lewis said 17 marchers were hurt, many of them treated at Good Samaritan Hospital. One of the nuns, name unknown, who treated the marchers was seated in a wheelchair just 10 feet away from Lewis as he recounted the day.
On Biden’s other arm was U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), who is a native of Selma, and the first black woman elected to Congress from Alabama. She was recently elected to her second term.
Surrounded by other dignitaries, including members of the Congressional leadership, U.S. Senators and civil rights leaders such as Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton, Biden joined in as the crowd sang, “We Shall Overcome.”
An estimated 15,000 marchers took part in Sunday’s crossing, a crowd Selma Police officials said was larger than in years past.
Tonight, the 15th BCS National Championship Game will cap yet another extraordinary college football season. College football is the only major American sport that emphasizes the regular season over the postseason, like baseball did in its glory days (when the two league champions went directly to the World Series). Correspondingly, it’s the only sport that sufficiently rewards teams for season-long excellence, rather than for a brief flourish of postseason glory (on the heels of regular-season mediocrity), of the kind now routinely celebrated in Major League Baseball and the NFL.
Those who doubt the possibility of comebacks (Republicans, for instance) can take heart from the revival of Notre Dame's football fortunes, this morning's number one college team.
On his personal website, former congressman Artur Davis confirmed at least some of the recent rumors surrounding him—that the lifelong Democrat, the man who endorsed Barack Obama for president early in 2007 and seconded his nomination at the Democratic party convention in 2008, now considers himself a Republican. Here's Davis on his switch:
With 45 of 45 precincts reporting, Mitt Romney has won the Republican caucuses in Hawaii. Romney received 45 percent of the vote, Rick Santorum 25 percent, Ron Paul 18 percent, and Newt Gingrich 11 percent.
Rick Santorum won two surprise victories last night in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries, and he did so by poaching voters from Newt Gingrich’s coalition. To appreciate this, let’s take a look at some data.
First, the topline numbers in the four Deep Southern states that have voted so far.
“Senator Santorum is at the desperate end of his campaign,” Mitt Romney told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday. Oops. For weeks, Team Romney and many of its allies have been eager—one might even say desperate—to end this campaign. The Republican primary electorate has been resisting this, and the voters in Alabama and Mississippi engaged in massive resistance yesterday, giving Romney less than a third of their votes.
Today is a relatively big day in the GOP nomination battle -- with caucuses in American Samoa and Hawaii and primaries in Alabama and Mississippi. The main story is in the South, though. And although this Southern Super Tuesday has relatively few delegates at stake – just 84 are up for grabs between the Alabama and Mississippi primaries – it will likely attract a good deal of attention. It will also offer something we have not yet seen: a roughly equal three-way battle between Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum.
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